Words on a page that might help me, or you, someday, maybe.

Equipment

Today I got to mess around with a bunch of camera equipment. And by ‘mess around’ I mean operate with extreme care, whilst keeping everything strapped and attached to either my neck, my pocket or my chest. No way was I going to drop a Canon 5DmkII that doesn’t belong to me.

This equipment was so high-spec that I had to watch a YouTube video to find out how to record video on the DSLR. I like photography, and I like cameras, but I’m not entirely sure what all of the buttons do. There are a lot of buttons. There are words like ISO and aperture that I am aware of their importance, but do not have a single clue what they mean.

For me, and this might sound primitive, and is probably why my photos are so frequently crap, the only button that I realise use on the camera is the one that takes the photo.

As well as the camera there were lights, tripods, lots of tripods, flashes, a pocket rig. I had lots of fun with the pocket rig – after we figured out what it was and how it worked.

You basically attach a big bit of metal to your hip, place the camera on it and you’ve got a bit of extra stability. All of these extra gadgets and gizmos are extraneous for the purposes of the task for which we need the camera, but it was good fun at least.

Photography is one of the many (few) things that I enjoy, but am not particularly good at. I mean, I’m not bad, but I don’t excel. But I’d like to get better. I occasionally shoot and edit YouTube videos because I’m trying to teach myself how to edit video, and I’m trying to teach myself to be better at photography and filmmaking, and I’m constantly trying to become a better writer. And I’m trying to develop this vast skillset wherein I have a certain amount of experience in a bunch of different creative fields, because I think that’s where I see my path heading.

Until I graduated University (or maybe just before) I considered myself an intellect, I studied Maths but had a side interest in writing. But now I have more of an interest in creation. I have this weird theory wherein to be properly successful you need four qualities.

Creativity. Intelligence. Consumerism. Drive.

I’ll dedicate an entire post to that mantra at some point, but just think Steve Jobs, or Kendrick Lamar – whichever your preference. True success comes when you’ve mastered all four of those things, not just dabbled as I have. You need flat 10/10s across the board, not a 5, 5, 3, 4.

So my goal of teaching myself to be creative across different mediums lends itself to that ethos, I just need to leave mediocracy and achieve mastery.